Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone Teardown

Overview / Main Features

The Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 is a custom built tri-band CDMA handset designed for Cricket Communications. The piano black music-oriented flip phone features support for the AWS spectrum (1700MHz) which is the latest carrier spectrum offered by the FCC for the US market.

The EV-DO enabled Samsung handset features expandable memory via microSD removable media and built in media player. Additionally, this mid-range handset offers 2Mpx camera and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity.

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone Main Image

Mainstream mobile phone consumers with an orientation towards music functionalities.

Released

Per press releases, first release in October 2008.

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Top

Pricing - Since Cricket relies heavily on pre-paid customer, most handset they offer do tend to sell at retail prices. At the time of writing (Dec. 2008), the Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 retails for $199.

Availability - available to select markets within the Cricket national coverage areas.

Volume Estimations

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed a lifetime production volume of 1M units.

As a reminder, teardown volume production assumptions are primarily used for our cost analysis in terms of amortized NRE and tooling costs, especially for custom components specific to the model being analyzed (mechanical components especially). Unless assumed volumes are different by an order of magnitude, minor changes in volume (say 1 million vs. 2) rarely have a large net effect on our final analysis because of this.

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone - Main PCB Bottom

As part of iSuppli's Design Forecast Tool (DFT), we forecast handset shipments by major design feature and manufacture, as well as the number of design starts a manufacturer will have by feature set.

iSuppli estimates unit shipments of 242 M CDMA EVDO handsets in 2008 global market. We further estimate 279 million units of 2 megapixel camera phones to ship in the 2008 global market. All estimates are based on a 2 year product life span assumption with an overall global market share of 14% for Samsung.

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone Cost Analysis

Main Cost Drivers Representing ~69% of total materials cost

Qualcomm - QSC6075 - Baseband Processor - Single Chip, CDMA 1xEV-DO , Quad-Band 800/900MHz & AWS(1700/2100MHz), GPS & Bluetooth, USB2.0, 65nm

Display Module Value Line Item - 2.1' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 320 x 240 Pixels

Camera Module Value Line Item - 2.0MP, 1/4' Format, Fixed Lens

6-Layer - Flex Kapton, w/ Stiffener, Lead-Free

Samsung Semiconductor - K5E1H12ACM-D075 - MCP - 1Gb NAND Flash, 512Mb Mobile SDRAM

Battery - Li-Ion, 3.7V, 840mAh

Samsung Electro-Mechanics - 10-Layer - FR4/RCF HDI, 2+6+2, Lead-Free, Halogen-Free

Display Module Value Line Item - 1.1' Diagonal, 65K Color CSTN, 96 x 96 Pixels

Qualcomm - BTS4020 - Bluetooth SoC v2.0+EDR

ATADS10JBE - Charger - 5V, 700mA

Avago - ACFM-7103 - Antenna Switch - Quintplexer, For PCS/Cellular/S-GPS

Enclosure, Display, Top - Injection Molded Glass-Filled Polycarbonate, w/ Insert-Molded Stamped / Formed Metal Plate, 2 Brass Inserts, Silkscreened, Clear Coat, w/ ESD/EMI Coating

Total BOM Cost $69.53

What Is Not Included in our Cost Analysis

The total materials and manufacturing costs reported in this analysis reflect ONLY the direct materials cost (from component vendors and assorted EMS providers), AND manufacturing with basic test. Not included in this analysis are costs above and beyond the material manufacture of the core device itself - cost of intellectual property, royalties and licensing fees (those not already included into the per component price), software, software loading and test, shipping, logistics marketing and other channel costs including not only EMS provider and the OEM's margin, but that of other resellers. Our cost analysis is meant to focus on those costs incurred in the manufacture of the core device and exceptionally in some circumstances the packaging and literature as well.

Manufacturing Notes

OEM/ODM/EMS Relationships / Manufacturing

According to iSuppli's "Global OEM Manufacturing and Design Analysis - Mobile Handsets Q1 2008, Samsung is traditionally an all in-house manufacturing operation. Only recently has Samsung begun to partner with Foxconn as an EMS partner which registers barely 0.2% of their overall manufacturing capacity. Within the scope of Samsung's internal manufacturing capability, about 70% of their products are made in Korea and 30% are made in lower cost countries such as China and India.

Country of Origin / Volume Assumptions

Based on markings, the unit was assembled in Korea. Furthermore, we have assumed that custom mechanicals (plastics, metals, etc.) were also sourced in Korea.

Country of origin assumptions relate directly to the associated cost of manufacturing, where calculated by iSuppli. In the cases of 'finished' sub-assemblies (such as displays and camera), we do not calculate internal manufacturing costs, but rather assess the market price of the finished product in which case country of origin assumptions may or may not have a direct effect on pricing.

Remember also that labor rates are applied directly only to hand inserted components and systems in our bill of materials, and although regional assumptions do, these new rates do not have a direct effect on our modeled calculations of placement costs for automated SMD assembly lines. ""Auto" inserted components (such as SMT components) placement costs are calculated by an iSuppli algorithm which allocates a cost per component based on the size and pincount of the device. This calculation is affected by country or region of origin as well.

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone - Enclosure Disassembly

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

The Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 has an overall component count of 675 excluding box contents, of which, 130 are mechanical in nature.

Component counts have a direct bearing on the overall manufacturing cycle times and costs, and also can increase or decrease overall yields and re-work. Our calculations of manufacturing costs factor counts and more qualitative complexities in the design. The cost of manufacturing is also, to some extent, decreased in this case because of assumed labor rate applied for China.

Note that manual labor has a much smaller effect on auto-insertion assembly lines (for the Main PCB, for example), where manufacturing costs are much more capital equipment intensive and driven by these investment costs.

Design Notes

The Samsung handset features a Qualcomm QSC6075. This is the first time that we've encountered this baseband processor which is not unsurprising due to the novelty of the AWS spectrum support within the device

Here is a summary of the major components used in the Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 design:

Main PCB

Baseband / RF Transceiver

• Baseband Processor - Qualcomm - QSC6075
• Antenna Switch - Murata - XM0825SF-TL1301

Memory

• MCP - Samsung Semiconductor - K5E1H12ACM-D075

User Interface

• Bluetooth - Qualcomm - BTS4020

PA

• PAM - Avago - ACPM-7391-TR - CDMA 1750-1785MHz & CDMA 1710-1755MHz
• PAM - Avago - WS1403-TR - CDMA 1900, 1850-1910MHz
• PAM - Avago - WS1103-TR1 - CDMA 800, 824-845MHz

Camera

• Camera Module - 2.0MP, 1/4' Format, Fixed Lens

Displays

• Display Module - 2.1' Diagonal, 262K Color TFT, 320 x 240 Pixels
• Display Module - 1.1' Diagonal, 65K Color CSTN, 96 x 96 Pixels

"

Samsung JetSet SCH-R550 Mobile Phone - Box Contents